Do You Fall In Love Too Fast?

You could pinch yourself. You’ve just met a great guy who is cute, a good talker, interested in you and charming to your friends. The way he is flirting, it’s clear he is trying to connect with you. So what are you thinking? “This could be the start of something big” or “You had me at hello”? When Renee Zellweger’s love struck character in Jerry McGuire confessed to Tom Cruise that he didn’t need to sweet talk her because she was already his forever, it made a helluva witty and romantic movie moment, but pointed to fatal flaws in her character’s approach to romance.

Before he even knew she ever existed, it had been dead clear that Zelleger’s shy character Dorothy, was devoted to the fast-talking self-centred Jerry. But in falling so fast and hard was she setting herself up for disappointment? It’s a question that could well be posed to Tom Cruise i real life. In his whirlwind romance with Katie Holmes, he has behaved like a love struck puppy, declaring his love for the 26-year-old actress an Oprah only a month after they started dating. a few weeks later the couple were engaged. soon after, they were expecting a child and now they’re married.

The sheer speed of Cruise’s relationship has set tongue’s wagging. It is really possible to fall in love that fast? Is it wise? Is the intensity sustainable? And when love moves at such lightning speed is there emotional fall-out down the track? “There’s this myth that if you meet someone and it’s the real thing you should be love-struck immediately and feel you can’t live without that person,” says relationship counsellor, Allegra Tripodi. “But rushing a relationship can cause lots of problems. It can prompt you to make bed decisions, misread signals and exaggerate feelings. It can also lead you to give more than you receive or create an impression that you’re just very keen. In the long-term, taking a romance too fast could result in you being let down, used or mistreated and ending up nursing a broken heart.”

To make sure you don’t get burned you need to put the brakes on your emotions when you’ve barely met a guy and within one night you’re thinking, “It’s the real deal”. Stop. Take a breath. Now don’t call him or talk about him (at least for the next few milliseconds). Don’t let yourself have one more “when we move in together/get engaged/declare our love” kind a thought until you’ve asked yourself the following key questions:

“Stop planning the wedding dress and his & her bathrobes when you’re barely had one date.”

Q #1 Am I Rushing Too Much?

Are you worried this guy isn’t really that keen on you and might be distracted by another woman if you don’t make your claim on him right away? Or has it been so long between relationships that you don’t want to hold back now that you’ve finally found a man who pushes all the right buttons? If you tend to fall in love every other week with any guy who chats to you or glances in your direction, it’s likely there’re deep-seated self-esteem problems driving your sense of urgency to ‘find love so fast.

“Maybe you don’t feel feel worthwhile without a man’s adoration so your sense of immediately stems from your need to be loved because it makes you feel valid and visible,” says Tripodi. “Maybe you’re so in love with the idea of being that you believe every new man you meet is the one you’ve been waiting for all your life – regardless of how little you really know him and whether or not he is truly compatible with you or not.”

Chances you’re tired of seeing all your friends snuggling up to their boyfriends and feeling like you’re the only one missing out. But if you push a relationship with a guy you barely know you may force things to the point where you miss out anyway – because you end wasting so much time on men who are not good relationship material in the first place. You used to fall in love with every guy you dated, go home and fantasize about how great it’d feel once you’re locked in each other’s arms all night. While you’re plotting your lives together in my mind you didn’t even know them well enough to be sure whether they took their coffee with milk and sugar. But after years of this pattern you realized you’re having one failed relationship after another because you were falling in love too quickly.

When you’re getting to know someone it takes time for their true character to shine through and you never waited that long. This meant there were lots of things about the guys you’re dating that you didn’t pick up – like one guy’s tendency to be super critical or another guy’s lake of personality – things that ultimately annoyed me but that you glossed over at the start. You guess you’re so keen on being in love that even a relationship with someone not quite right seemed better than having no relationship at all. But you were wrong – too rush into one ill-fated relationship after another won’t make feel better – it made you feel worse because you kept giving yourself over to love but it never seemed to last.

Q #2 Is There Any Signs He’s Interested As You’re?

When you’re totally gone on a guy you’ve just met, your sense are in overdrive, but even though it’s a stretch to judge what’s going on objectively, you need to make that reality check. Better to be honest with yourself now than waste your energy planning to have babies with a guy who can’t even remember your name. So, the next time a boyfriend possibility is on the horizon, take a long, hard look at the signals he’s giving you.

Dos he keep looking your way when you run into his friends? Has he asked for your phone number or called you, even once? If you’ve already dated, how enthusiastic was he about hooking up again? If you have been dating exclusively for a few months, does he seem as into you as you are into him – or do you feel that the relationship is only working through all of your efforts to push it along? No matter how much you feel for this guy when he said you’re stunning beauty, the relationship won’t work if the vital signs are not good. Unless he’s keen, committed and demonstrative, it could be time to bail.

Q #3 Are You Coming Too Strong?

This morning you send him 10 text messages. This afternoon you shot him a couple of emails. He’s so wonderful you can’t stop thinking about him and you want him to know you’re serious so that he gets serious about you. But be careful that in the process you don’t scare him off or send him running for cover.

“I met this great girl and I really wanted to go out with her,” says Ian, 26. “But after our first two dates she just became obsessed. She was testing me all day and ringing me on my mobile just to see what I was doing. I felt suffocated. she was saying stuff about me that was very flattering but that she couldn’t really mean because she didn’t know me that well. In the end the speed at which she fell for me scared me off not just because I felt overwhelmed but because she had this fantasy of a fairy-tale romance and I was secondary to that. In fact, I could have been any guy – what she really wanted was just to be able to say she was ‘in love’. I broke it off after a month and though I’m sure I did the right thing it was really sad – she was great girl who was just trying too hard.”

If you fall in love as quickly as you sneeze, you probably think that having a boyfriend will cure everything you you don’t like about yourself and your life. Gained a bit of weight? It won’t matter if someone loves you. Hate your job? If you’ll find love have things outside of work to focus on. Dislike your flatmate? Well, you get the picture. Trouble is,, this puts a lot of pressure on each guy you meet. It create a false incentive for you to fall in love over and over becasue you think that will bring you instant happiness.

“In light of this expectation, every relationship takes on mythic proportions as something that’ll transform your life, meet you every need and make your world perfect overnight,” says one of my friends. “So instead of just experiencing a natural high in the company of a man who attracts you, the need to be with him becomes all-consuming. You want it to work so badly that you fall in love with him willingly, hanging on his every word and thinking about him 24/7. And instead of letting the relationships take its natural course, you hasten things along by declaring you love him. You go to ridiculous lengths to bump into him, find out what he things of you and try to force him to love you back. Deep down whats driving this behavior is a huge fear that he won’t love you as much as you love him or that he’ll lose interest in you very fast.”

Q #4 Can He Be Trusted?

If he the kind of guy who everyone thinks is decent and reliable or have you heard gossip that he’s a bit of a player? Does he call when he’s running late, apologize if he says something tactless or pay you back like he said he would because doesn’t have enough money for his share of the meal? It’s easy to overlook the little things when you’re head over heels about someone new, but it’s the little things which are big signposts indicating whether or not he’s worthy of your love.

So before you go telling him what a hot lover he is, how much you’ve waited for someone like him and how you think about him all day, make the call on whether or not he can be trusted with that info. Will he use it to manipulate you to get what he wants from the relationship or will he compliment you right back because it’s clear that he thinks you’re a fantastic girls?

If you’ve done most of the legwork in this romance it may ne hard to figure out if he is genuinely smitten with you or just going along for the ride. Ask your friends what they think, elicit some comments on him from his friends and see what response you get – it will be clear whether you adoration of him is something he reciprocates or totally misplaced.

Q #5 Is He Sweet Talking Me?

Your eyes are beautiful, your breasts are perfect and he just can’t stop looking at you. Not only has he flattered you with all these compliments, but he said them on the first night you met. Later, when he kissed you, it was long and hard. You felt completely carried away with with passion. On both dates you’ve melted in his company and he’s made you feel protected and idolized. Flattering? You bet – but are you sure he’s for real? It’s easy to fall i love with a guy who keeps putting his arm around you and showering you with compliments.

His attention may make you feel desirable, but is he genuine or spinning you a line? When women rush it and don’t take the time to see the true dynamics of a relationship they often end up getting hurt,” says Hallwood. “It took me a long time to realize that I fell instantly for any guy who paid me the slightest bit of attention,” says Marie, 25. If a guy was really laying on the compliments I was a total sucker for it because I wanted to believe every word he said. I’d rush to exchange numbers, rush into having sex with him and push to see him again as often as possible.

“My urgency was very much about wanting to feel the headiness of love before I got to know the guy. Once I did know about wanting to feel the headiness of love before I got to know the guy. One I did know more about most boyfriends I’d often start to see that they weren’t anything like the fantasy man I’d built them up to be in my mind? My habit of discussing each new love interest as ‘the one’ was making me blind to what I really needed to look for – not a man who fed me clichés about love, but a man who was sincere, communicative and happy to be with me for the long haul. So, I started to go-slow policy with every new guy I met.”

“At first it was hard to hold back and not expressing my lover verbally or physically felt like torture. But in the long term it was so much better when I stopped getting all gushy over a guy after just two dates and took my time, and found not only that I could think more clearly but that I didn’t get hurt nearly as much because I started being more perceptive in my choices about men. By taking things slower, I didn’t have unrealistic expectations that every date was ultimately heading to a walk down the aisle. I also found it was much easier to discern when a guy was just trying to sweet talk me to get me into bed or when he really did thank that we’d made a connection.”

Q #6 Are You Rushing Things

There’s a big difference between being swept up on a wave of romance and letting it completely wash you away. “When you’re swept up you feel great but see things clearly; when you’re swept away you feel out of control,” says Hallwood. “What you need to remember is this – if the guy you like is a great as you think and as interested as you hope, than he’s not going anywhere – if he likes you he will want to get to know you better and encourage the relationship to develop and grow. So take your time and enjoy the wonderful, heady process of getting to know each other – there will be plenty of time for saying ‘I Love You’ and ‘I Do’ down the track.”

Wonderful article. I’m in a similar situation in which this guy I recently talk to seems to be everything I’ve ever wanted. We flirt a ton, but I’ve started to feel that I’m rushing too hard. As exciting as it is, my new fling definitely needs some time to develop. This article gives me a list of things I should be aware of. Thank you so much.

actually this was great, am fond of taking my time, but i started getting this feeling that may be am wrong. but after reading this wonderful article, I belive that am on track. I was smart to clear up some space for myself. I knew the right guys and the wrong guys. I’ve learnt to follow my insticts.

Another thing to note is that: once you start getting these silly feellings about the guys, the stop, take your time and check on that. it has also worked for me on addition to the above.

Well I am guy that has fallen and things Are crazy all in
My head. I know I need to slow down because I feel all tingly inside…. Can’t get her out of my mind. It is so hard to slow down!!! But i need to get my head right so I do not get hurt… It sorta feels crazy good but I know she wants to go slow to figure out my intentions… I am all over the place… I need to read this daily to Help me.. Thanks.